I broadly agree with this article, but some part of me felt… uncomfortable?… with the topic. So I tried to give voice to that part of me. Very uncertain about this, and it is a bit confusing.
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I think we often build up pictures/stories of ourselves based on our regular habits/ actions. If I exercise every day, I start to think of myself as athletic/ healthy/ strong. If I wipe the counters in the kitchen, it contributes to my sense of responsibility/ care-taking/ cleanliness. If I do X that I believe is wasteful (i.e. common opinion says that X is wasteful and I have not seen any analyses that disprove the common opinion), I think of myself as a more selfish/ wasteful/ immoral person.
It seems easier for people to build up stories around actions that are direct/ concrete/ tangible/ etc. For example, I hear there are GiveWell employees who feel like their work is so removed from outcomes that it is difficult to feel motivated. Even though GiveWell does much more “direct work” than most of us will ever do! I think actions we feel are present/ close/ non-abstract/ non-alienating/ etc. may influence our self-identity significantly.
Negative self-images, if they get too strong, can be debilitating. At the very least, they are not fun. Often, to avoid negative self-image, we develop stories about why it’s “OK” to be wasteful, even if we would not want everyone else to be. Stories such as “my time is super valuable.”
Stories matter. If you attain a position of power, they influence what actions you take with that power. And stories interact and compound. For example, my feeling guilty about being wasteful can lead to a reinforcement of the belief that my time is valuable. Believing that my time is really valuable can lead to me making more wasteful decisions. Decisions like: “It is totally fine for me to buy all these expensive ergonomic keyboards simultaneously on Amazon and try them out, then throw away whichever ones do not work for me.” Or “I will buy this expensive exercise equipment on a whim to test out. Even if I only use it once and end up trashing it a year later, it does not matter.”
The thinking in the examples above worries me. People are bad at reasoning about when to make exceptions to rules like “try to behave in non-wasteful ways”, especially when the exception is personally beneficial. And I think each exception can weaken your broader narrative about what you value and who you are.
I think I want people to default towards the common-sense, non-wasteful actions (as long as the cost feels pretty low to them), until they have read or made a well-reasoned case that the action is not wasteful in the way common opinion indicates (e.g., I liked Rob’s article that complicates our narrative around recycling: https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/what-you-think-about-landfill-and-recycling-is-probably-totally-wrong-3a6cf57049ce). I suspect that this approach will lead to a reinforcement of narratives/ values that seem good to me.
Believing that my time is really valuable can lead to me making more wasteful decisions. Decisions like: “It is totally fine for me to buy all these expensive ergonomic keyboards simultaneously on Amazon and try them out, then throw away whichever ones do not work for me.” Or “I will buy this expensive exercise equipment on a whim to test out. Even if I only use it once and end up trashing it a year later, it does not matter.”
...
The thinking in the examples above worries me. People are bad at reasoning about when to make exceptions to rules like “try to behave in non-wasteful ways”, especially when the exception is personally beneficial. And I think each exception can weaken your broader narrative about what you value and who you are.
I was brought up in a family that was very pro-don’t-waste, and I’ve had an a lengthy shift towards “actually, ‘not wasting’” just isn’t very important. It’s more of a carry-over from a time when a) humanity had a lot less ability to produce stuff, b) humanity had worse landfill technology than we have now.”
Insofar as we do produce too much waste, it’s mostly at a corporate/organizational level than something that makes sense for individuals to prioritize.
It’s not that I think people should be making exceptions to rules like ‘try to behave in non-wasteful ways’, it’s that I mostly now think that ‘don’t be wasteful’ wasn’t that useful a core-rule in the first place.
(Among my cruxes here are a belief that landfill technology has improved since the era when ‘don’t waste’ and ‘recycle’ memes took off, as well as a shift towards ‘thinking broadly about having a high impact is much more important than individual local decisions.’
Past me (and perhaps you) might be suspicious of the ‘landfill technology is actually good enough that this isn’t that big a deal’, perhaps rightly so because it’s a kinda suspiciously-convenient belief. I don’t have arguments-at-the-ready that’d have convinced past me, so mostly just laying out my current reasoning without expecting it to be that persuasive at the moment)
I agree that everyday actions shape our self-perception. I don’t believe this has to be all-or-nothing. I have a lot of friends who pride themselves on not being wasteful, but don’t know how to sew and won’t patch up old clothes. This habit of throwing out holey clothes doesn’t stop them from eating the leftovers in their fridge or spending their money carefully.
There are a lot of small actions we can do to improve the world. Many of these will also reinforce our identities as caring and thoughtful people. In that sense, they’re helpful and aspiring EAs should continue doing them.
However, I don’t think EA as a community should promote these small actions, unless they’re particularly cost-effective. I think prioritising a list of, say, 15 small actions counts as promoting them, because people might feel like they should adopt the top small actions, when actually I think people should just keep doing what they’re doing and focus on big wins.
I broadly agree with this article, but some part of me felt… uncomfortable?… with the topic. So I tried to give voice to that part of me. Very uncertain about this, and it is a bit confusing.
--
I think we often build up pictures/stories of ourselves based on our regular habits/ actions. If I exercise every day, I start to think of myself as athletic/ healthy/ strong. If I wipe the counters in the kitchen, it contributes to my sense of responsibility/ care-taking/ cleanliness. If I do X that I believe is wasteful (i.e. common opinion says that X is wasteful and I have not seen any analyses that disprove the common opinion), I think of myself as a more selfish/ wasteful/ immoral person.
It seems easier for people to build up stories around actions that are direct/ concrete/ tangible/ etc. For example, I hear there are GiveWell employees who feel like their work is so removed from outcomes that it is difficult to feel motivated. Even though GiveWell does much more “direct work” than most of us will ever do! I think actions we feel are present/ close/ non-abstract/ non-alienating/ etc. may influence our self-identity significantly.
Negative self-images, if they get too strong, can be debilitating. At the very least, they are not fun. Often, to avoid negative self-image, we develop stories about why it’s “OK” to be wasteful, even if we would not want everyone else to be. Stories such as “my time is super valuable.”
Stories matter. If you attain a position of power, they influence what actions you take with that power. And stories interact and compound. For example, my feeling guilty about being wasteful can lead to a reinforcement of the belief that my time is valuable. Believing that my time is really valuable can lead to me making more wasteful decisions. Decisions like: “It is totally fine for me to buy all these expensive ergonomic keyboards simultaneously on Amazon and try them out, then throw away whichever ones do not work for me.” Or “I will buy this expensive exercise equipment on a whim to test out. Even if I only use it once and end up trashing it a year later, it does not matter.”
The thinking in the examples above worries me. People are bad at reasoning about when to make exceptions to rules like “try to behave in non-wasteful ways”, especially when the exception is personally beneficial. And I think each exception can weaken your broader narrative about what you value and who you are.
I think I want people to default towards the common-sense, non-wasteful actions (as long as the cost feels pretty low to them), until they have read or made a well-reasoned case that the action is not wasteful in the way common opinion indicates (e.g., I liked Rob’s article that complicates our narrative around recycling: https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/what-you-think-about-landfill-and-recycling-is-probably-totally-wrong-3a6cf57049ce). I suspect that this approach will lead to a reinforcement of narratives/ values that seem good to me.
I was brought up in a family that was very pro-don’t-waste, and I’ve had an a lengthy shift towards “actually, ‘not wasting’” just isn’t very important. It’s more of a carry-over from a time when a) humanity had a lot less ability to produce stuff, b) humanity had worse landfill technology than we have now.”
Insofar as we do produce too much waste, it’s mostly at a corporate/organizational level than something that makes sense for individuals to prioritize.
It’s not that I think people should be making exceptions to rules like ‘try to behave in non-wasteful ways’, it’s that I mostly now think that ‘don’t be wasteful’ wasn’t that useful a core-rule in the first place.
(Among my cruxes here are a belief that landfill technology has improved since the era when ‘don’t waste’ and ‘recycle’ memes took off, as well as a shift towards ‘thinking broadly about having a high impact is much more important than individual local decisions.’
Past me (and perhaps you) might be suspicious of the ‘landfill technology is actually good enough that this isn’t that big a deal’, perhaps rightly so because it’s a kinda suspiciously-convenient belief. I don’t have arguments-at-the-ready that’d have convinced past me, so mostly just laying out my current reasoning without expecting it to be that persuasive at the moment)
I agree that everyday actions shape our self-perception. I don’t believe this has to be all-or-nothing. I have a lot of friends who pride themselves on not being wasteful, but don’t know how to sew and won’t patch up old clothes. This habit of throwing out holey clothes doesn’t stop them from eating the leftovers in their fridge or spending their money carefully.
There are a lot of small actions we can do to improve the world. Many of these will also reinforce our identities as caring and thoughtful people. In that sense, they’re helpful and aspiring EAs should continue doing them.
However, I don’t think EA as a community should promote these small actions, unless they’re particularly cost-effective. I think prioritising a list of, say, 15 small actions counts as promoting them, because people might feel like they should adopt the top small actions, when actually I think people should just keep doing what they’re doing and focus on big wins.